A Brief Rant...

I have been seeing and hearing a LOT of complaining in the agility world and I am FED UP! We all have bad days where it's difficult to spot the sun through all the clouds BUT some people complain DAILY. I have heard several people (technically I have seen it on Facebook) complain about all of the adding costs of going to Cynosport (USDAA Nationals) and it makes me want to punch some one in the face! They complain about the costs as if going to Cynosport is a necessity. I can't even afford to QUALIFY my dog for Cynosport to shut the fuck up! If it's that miserable financially for you, then DON'T GO! You can't take care of your health or life's necessities but thank GOD you can pay more nationals (barely!). 

The other thing I see a lot of that is driving me NUTS is lack of acknowledging your partner after a run, whether it's clean or not. I get SUPER annoyed when the run is great and I find myself beaming but the handler doesn't even look at their dog. I also find it annoying when I feel like the handler made the mistakes on course but the dog is getting zero acknowledgement or connection after the run. NO WONDER you guys had a bad run! 

I see so much hypocrisy in the agility world (there's plenty in the regular world too) in which people repeat mantras such as "It's about the journey", "No matter what, have fun", etc. but they're the ones picking their performances apart and not connecting with their dogs. Their the people that are forgetting to treat their dogs as pets and not just performance dogs. It's funny to me how important titling, Q'ing, and making it to Regional and National competitions is in dog agility when there is NOT a lot of money, if any money, to be gained. Why is it that we spend SO much money on a sport that has not much monetary return? People say it's about running with your dog and connecting and being best friends, lalalalala but it sure doesn't look like fun when I watch them run together. In fact, I find myself self feeling as bad for the dog as I do when I see animal abuse videos. I am not saying they're being abused, I'm just saying it makes me equally as sad for the dog. 

If you are new to agility, be sure to keep videos of when you first started around because you WILL forget what it was like and you WILL get lost along the way. But, if you keep these memories close to you, they will surely ground you again.

Today's Exercise is Sponsered by the Letter "E"!

Part I:
Well, today Monster and I played with the "E" drill from Nancy Gyes' Alphabet Drills. It was pretty fun! One of my favorite drills so far. Lots of things to do with this drill :) Easy to break up into smaller sequences and, at the beginning of the exercise, she breaks it down until you build up to the full drill sequences. Monster surprised me by finding a straight line that I wasn't 100% sure he could see. The jumps were different angles but all 3 of them had a definite straight path to each other. There are still a few sequences that we haven't done with this drill so it will be in the yard all week. 

I chose this drill because, at the LCDA trial, Monster missed a jump that was part of a pinwheel. It was likely handler error but I'd like him to recognize that pattern on a course better. He nailed it! We threw in a few dogwalks to practice our DW criteria and he knew it. Having seen him perform the dogwalk appropriately at home and at the big training field, I know the issue at this recent trial was just a lack of changing habitat. We will continue to practice and hopefully make it to a run thru or two to practice criteria on other dogwalks. We are going to try to go to the big field tomorrow and get some practice in before I leave for a week for my internship. 

I have entered Monster in the November LCDA trial for 1 day only and we will have the opportunity to earn a Standard Q that I'd love to see us get. I know he can do it but we just need to make it happen in a trial atmosphere. We will also be running Pairs so that I don't have the issue I had with Shawty (not entering Pairs ever and ending up trying desperately to earn that Q for too many trials). 

***I have a mini project tonight to build some contact trainers from spare PVC I have for our A-Frame training tomorrow night :D

Part II:

Well, today is day 2 of the letter "E" drill and we have had lots more success. I have been working on "pushes" with Monster as well with this drill. I also threw in some weave poles in one of the modified versions of this drill so that I can encourage more weave independence. I left the guide wires on all 6 poles and then removed the middle. 99.5% success! I stopped handling because he took the poles without my cue and he jumped over a wire when he realized I had "turned off". My boy is so smart though :) 




There are 2 more modifications to this drill that I hope to set up and practice before Friday but we will see if time allows. I have attached a couple of pages, but not all of them, from this drill. I have also attached a photo of one of the modified versions set up in my backyard. 

I think I have underestimated the skills I could teach in my backyard for a long time until now. I absolutely love this book because there are endless training opportunities and it's great for some one like me who doesn't have lots of other equipment besides jumps, weaves, and tunnels!

Decisions, Decisions- Battles Between Heart and Head...

I find myself at a place (I wouldn't say it's a crossroad) where I have what I consider to be a tough decision. I have to decide between waiting to trial again in January to build up my savings or run (limited number of runs) November and December. My heart wants to run but my head says that agility isn't going anywhere and I need to take care of my finances. To a non-agility person it may seem obvious but when you have great runs at trials, like I did with Monster, it can be a lot harder than you think. I have hit a few bumps in the road financially when I thought I'd be in a good place financially for agility trial season. Phil and I have a weekend of zip-lining coming up after my internship and I want us to be able to do something together. I don't see how I can make that work if I also enter a trial that will cost $112 to run every class. I love USDAA and all the class options but it can get so expensive. I might be able to enter just the classes needed to try and finish Monster's AD (Standard, Pairs, Gamblers) for about $70. Tough decisions. I feel like the $70 option is a good compromise and I could even enter for less if I just run one day. That would cost about $42-$56 depending on which classes I enter him in. I don't want to bore anyone with my finances (although this is MY blog lol) but I need some where to vent and talk it out. I also wanted to attach a chart that some one in the agility community made about average costs of getting a championship with a dog in AKC vs. USDAA. Ultimately, the cost per class is cheaper in USDAA but there are more classes offered and required by USDAA to earn a championship. Championships are not on our brains but I still felt like it was an informative chart. As I am typing this, I feel like the answer to my dilemma (one that I can live with) is to enter 1 day of the November trial. That will give us the opportunity to try and earn our AD title and if it doesn't happen then I'll see what I can do in December. 

My dilemma and some recent Facebook newsfeed have alerted something in me. I have seen people who are willing to max out their credit cards, empty their savings, and stretch their funds paper thin to compete in agility with their dogs. I do NOT want to be like that. I've got a boyfriend who has children and a mortgage to pay, groceries to buy, etc. I never want to feel like I have to choose between those things and I feel like I am flirting with that line right now. I never want to catch myself talking about not having enough money for things when I CHOOSE to enter my dogs in agility trials. Agility trials and dog agility in general are not necessary to life and I don't want to find myself feeling like they are. My dogs will enjoy other activities just as much. I am the one who will miss it but can live without it if need be. 

Thanks for listening to me vent! I will keep you posted as to what I decide to do :)

First Trial of the Season! LOTS to Talk About...

Well, we survived the first trial of the season and the first trial since our summer hiatus! LOTS of things to talk about. First, I'd like to say that my boys were great! We had the awesome hospitality of my Aunt Mary Anne and her husband Charlie. They tolerated 3 dogs, a flying squirrel (a baby I am rehabbing), and my boyfriend and myself! A few family members came out on Sunday to watch us run and the agility gods blessed us with 3 great runs for them to watch! 

Saturday started out a little rough and started to feel like the same old stuff from our previous trials. Started picking up the pace in the afternoon and by the time Monster had his standard run he was wild! The sun was blazing and I'd hosed him off a few times before our run so he was feeling frisky by the time we started. I'd prefer to focus on the positive experiences at the trial so I will mostly share Sunday's runs. I was feeling pretty confident about Gamblers with Shawty but I didn't send him very well to the outside jump. I could tell my energy just wasn't there for some reason. He just looked at me like I was crazy and took the chute and the finish jump while I was still standing by the first jump of the gamble! HA! It was super cute. He followed up the day by getting an Advanced Snooker Q in the rain (his last agility run!) and a PII Standard run that was great before that! I chose to retire Shawty after watching him run in gamblers the day prior. I cried afterwards because I hate seeing him overjump to make it. He will have just as much fun playing other games with me! 

Monster was a super star Sunday! He was just getting his footing Saturday so that he could show off his skills on Sunday! He made PI Gamblers look easy with 49 points and a Q! We followed that up with a PI Standard run that had some ups and downs but mostly ups. I realized that we are in desperate need of some aframe training. Then, he decided to earn his PI Snooker title with 51 points and a Q! Finally, we ended the day with a lovely and FAST PI umpers run that also finished his PI Jumpers title! That's incredible! I loved watching the playback of the video and seeing where our foundation training paid off. 

I strongly urge any one who reads this and is wanting to start agility with their dog to work on foundation first! It may not seem as fun as the running agility stuff but it creates such a good relationship with your dog and gives you guys skills that are a MUST in agility! That's probably 
where I see the biggest differences between Monster and Shawty. It's a great lesson that I learned but if I could have known better, I would have done it differently. 

Overall the weekend was a great one and I am looking forward to trialing just one dog again for many reasons. We will be back to LCDA in November. By the way, Kellie Verelli was our judge and she was awesome at designing courses and judging. Her briefings were short and sweet and I look forward to being under her judgement again!

Training at the Big Field!

We were finally able to make it out to the training field tonight. My plan, since Monster has been performing his 2o2o well with the Manners Minder faded, was to use the Manners Minder a couple of times to remind Monster that, even though this dogwalk is taller and longer, his job is still the same. It was so cool to see him excited to run the dogwalk and run confindently and FAST over the dogwalk! I had originally started training him with the intention to have a running dogwalk but he just never seemed very confident and I didn't have a dogwalk or a way to target with food by myself. I finally purchased a Manners Minder but it was after I changed my mind about his dogwalk performance. Even with the training I had started with his 2o2o I still could tell he wasn't confident or sure of himself with it. And, I was no help because I have never taught a dog a true contact performance end behavior. But, I came up with a plan to just place the MM on either end of the dogwalk (making sure I alternated ends in every training session) until it became muscle memory and he knew what his job was. I had tried to back chain by teaching a 2o2o behavior on other objects and shape it with a clicker but he seemed unsure of himself. That's why I turned to my MM. AND IT WORKED! Tonight Monster was very excited to see the dogwalk and I used the MM for about 4 reps. Then I removed the MM and he still maintaing his incredible speed but had more self control at the end (he was a little wild initially). I am so proud of him. He was very confident on the teeter as well with a great stop at the end until I released him (no "target" position). I simply use his "wait" cue and it does the trick :) I moves pretty quickly to the end (almost a slide). We also made sure to practice a few tires and and chutes with confidence. The only, somewhat, surprising issue we had was his weave performance. He had great success for about 2-3 reps of 12 poles and then he just stopped being able to collect himself to get the first set of 2 poles. I will try to do some short sessions with him in the next 2 days to correct the issue. I certainly don't expect perfection this weekend at the LCDA trial but it would be nice to walk away with a few Q's. I think we deserve it and it sucks when that doesn't show in our trial performances. Not to mention the money I've spent :) Either way we will be sure to have fun together and I will appreciate our small successes. 

Shawty didn't do too much new stuff tonight. I know what works with him and I know what skills he has and doesn't have. I also know that the skills we don't have together will take more training than what can be accomplished before this trial so I don't expect much change in those areas. He was fast and lively tonight and I made sure to get him on almost every piece of equipment. No one saw an aframe because the aframe is in the indoor arena. Shawty was his usual reliable self and I love that about him. I know he will push his boundaries and have fun doing it, I know he will run his heart out as long as he thinks it's fun, I know he's the cutest little dog doing agility ever and that is what matters to me. He is my little old man and who knows how much time we have to run together. I noticed some crepitus (sign of arthritis) in his wrists the other day. He hasn't been lame but he has been licking the area lately. It made me realize that this pairs Q is very important. I could throw away all of the Q's we earned previously but I would prefer not to throw those out the window and start over again in PIII. I am trying to get that Q for us in pairs so that we can move to PIII in ALL classes and jump the lowest height possible. That would mean less impact on his joints and more time running together :) X-rays didn't show any major arthritic changes so, until they do, I will not retire him. But, when the time does come, I hope that I will not hesitate recognize it and pull him from agility. At that point, we will stick to swimming and do some hydrotherapy at work. 

Punch didn't get to come to class tonight but he has been doing great with our backyard exercises. He loves running so much that he literally foams at the mouth! He has lots of "squirrel!" moments in between training but is slowly getting more focused each time. The key may be to start with super duper short sessions and then gradually increase the time. That can be hard for me to do sometimes when I am on a roll with a session but I have seen the benefits of keeping sessions shorter vs. longer. It will likely be another year before Punch sees a trial ring and that will probably be a jumpers course. 

We also got our new luggage sack for the roof of my car so that all 3 dogs can travel in their own crates! Woohoo! Thanks to my aunt we can avoid hotel room costs too! I have great family! I had a bad week financially so I am glad to see some savings some where. This may be our last trial until January but I hope things turn around for us. We will certainly find ways to entertain ourselves if we don't trial. Well, that's all folks. Time for bed. This week is almost over!!!!